Page 45 of Monster in the Moonlight

Bobby’s quiet for several seconds. Distressed, he scratches at his head while thinking through all I’ve told him.

His eyes, the same light brown as Hannah’s, bounce to me. “I don’t want you here. If Hannah’s going to die anyway, let us have peace and privacy for the small time she has left.”

“That wouldn’t be good for Hannah.”

“Why?”

“She needs me. My presence will make the illness progress more quickly.”

“Then I definitely don’t want you here.”

Even if he tried to force me off his land, he wouldn’t be able to keep me away. I’d just vortex myself back, and there’s nothing he could do about it.

“Believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to prolong this for Hannah,” I say. “Without me, it will be one of the most slow and painful deaths you can imagine. Just by being near, I will soothe her, like lulling a baby into slumber.”

“Permanent slumber,” he grits out.

“Temporary,” I remind him.

“Oh, yeah.” He scoffs. “Because knowing my daughter’s soul will be in the hands of some devil makes me feel so much better.”

Vaeront is a devil of sorts, I can’t deny that. Every psychopath takes a trophy from their victims. What’s more personal than their very spirit? What’s better than owning them, completely, forever?

Though, I’m not sure what good souls are to Vaeront in the Lost Land.

Anyone who crosses over to that universe is automatically disconnected from their soul. Had I still been attached to mine when I first went there, I would’ve felt the loss of it, but it was already long gone by then.

Vaeront, the soul collector himself, took my spirit from me when I was still a young man. Many times, I’ve thought he did me a favor when he stole it. In its absence, I haven’t had to worry about the pain I would suffer from my dirty deeds.

A vision of Vaeront’s pale fingers hovering over Hannah’s chest enters my mind. I imagine him attaching himself to her essence as he makes her heart start beating again. He’ll bring the color back to her cheeks, her eyes will flutter open, and she’ll wake up in the desolateness of the Lost Land.

It makes me want to destroy things in a fit of rage.

She doesn’t belong there, but one way or another, Vaeront always gets what he wants, and what he desires above all else is to build a society of his own. To rule over his people like a king.

He wants puppets, and Hannah will be the next person to be attached to the strings.

Disgruntling despair weighs on me, and with a rare show of emotion, I make a sound of hopelessness as I grip the back of my neck. “Staying near Hannah isn’t just about improving the process. Certain conditions must be met during her death for the resurrection to work as it should.”

“What conditions?”

I won’t tell him the details of the collection. I refuse to say that I’ll drink Hannah’s blood before she dies. That her living blood has to be running through my veins in order for Vaeront’s magic to be successful.

Knowing that part won’t make it better for Bobby.

“For one, the body has to be fresh,” I say vaguely. “And two, the cause of death must be from the illness taking its natural course. If she were to die prematurely in an accident, it would derail the ritual.”

“Derailing the ritual—wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“No. If I’m not here to deliver her to Vaeront, I don’t know what will happen to her soul. Don’t you see her soul doesn’t belong to her? It was never hers.”

Bobby winces, stress lines appearing around his eyes as they become misty. “You’re saying she’ll, what, evaporate into nothing?”

“I’m saying, I don’t know.”

Turning away to compose himself, he clamps a hand over his mouth, but he spins back my way a second later.

His expression is pleading as he gasps out a sob and rubs at his throat as if his airway is closing in. “How am I supposed to tell my daughter she’s dying?”

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